Posts Tagged ‘abduction’

A French citizen has become the fifth person to be abducted and threatened with execution by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS.)

The Algerian “Soldiers of the Caliphate” announced Tuesday they would execute Hervé Gourdel in 24 hours if France does withdraw from the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS. The group is called Jund al-Khilafah in Arabic and split from Al Qaeda’s North African branch, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) according to the Qatar-based Al Jazeera news network. Its members swore loyalty to ISIS earlier this month.

The group announced its plans in a video uploaded to the internet in which Gourdel, age 55, is seen seated between two masked, armed men. “We, the Caliphate Soldiers in Algeria, in compliance with the order of our leader Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi … give Hollande, president of the criminal French state, 24 hours to cease its hostility against the Islamic State, otherwise the fate of his citizen will be slaughter. To save his life, you must officially announce the end of your hostility against the Islamic State,” a speaker on the video said.

Addressing French President Francois Hollande directly, Gourdel said in the video, “This armed group has asked me to demand that you do not intervene in Iraq. They are holding me hostage. I beg you, Monsieur Président, to do all in your power to get me out of this bad situation. I thank you.”

The video has been confirmed to be authentic by the French government, which said it was doing everything possible to track down Gourdel, a resident of Nice working as a mountain guide. He was in Algeria as a tourist, though, when he was kidnapped, traveling in a car in the region of Tziz Ouzou with two local Algerian guides when the vehicle was stopped by a group of masked gunmen. His two guides were set free.

ISIS has beheaded two American journalists and a British aid worker in Raqqa, Syria. A second British aid worker, Alan Henning, is so far still alive; both his wife and Muslims around the world have appealed to ISIS to free him, insisting that he has been “peaceful” and a “friend to the Ummah.”

Muslims around the world are advocating for the life of British aid worker Alan Henning, who is being held hostage and whose life is threatened by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist organization.

A tweet late Saturday night on the Twitter social networking site encapsulated the myriad responses to rumors that Henning may have already been executed by the group:

“ISIS threatening to kill Alan Henning, a man who’s done more benefit for the Ummah than majority of the Muslims fact!”

Unconfirmed reports had trickled out from Raqqa, Syria, that ISIS had beheaded Henning on Saturday, but the source of the rumors was not clear. No official announcement was made by the terrorist group.

A report was posted by a Syrian advocacy organization in Raqqa on Facebook, saying “some troops from ISIS drove another captive in orange uniform like the US and British reporters were dressed to the hill across from the site where they beheaded James Foley… a man holding a knife was along with him. We believe it’s the same person who executed the reporters before.

“ISIS beheaded this captive at 7:50 am and many cars went with them; one of the cars was carrying a big TV camera in it. ISIS closed all the roads leading to Deir Ezzor, the north, the south and the one which leads to the desert before and during the beheading – around 30 cars surrounded the hill where this captive was beheaded, three cameras were rolling on the surrounding areas…

“We noticed a Nissan red station and a black 4×4…in this black car there was another captive who was protected with many ISIS troops.”

On the Twitter social networking site, angry rumors continued to fly.

“I’m sure it’ll be confirmed soon enough. Betrayed by the very people he tried to help,” wrote one person in a bitter tweet on the Twitter social networking site Saturday night.

“Betrayed by who?” responded another, clearly upset. “They are not Muslims, stop associating them with us.”

Many Muslim groups have made it a point to dissociate themselves from ISIS and to underline their view that the terrorist group has “nothing to do with Islam.”

A group of 49 hostages from Turkey’s Consulate in Mosul was forced by their ISIS captors to watch videos of the beheading of two Americans and one British citizen during the 101 they were held.

Rescued Turkish Consul General of Mosul Ozturk Yilmaz told journalists, “They made us watch the beheadings. There is no reason to kill like this, not for any religion or political thought.” He denounced the killing of James Foley, Steven Sotloff (a dual American-Israeli citizen) and David Haines (a UK citizen) as “cruelty.”

Turkey has managed to retrieve 49 of its own citizens who were being held hostage by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist organization, the Anadolu Agency reported, allegedly without paying any ransom.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the group, which included diplomats, soldiers, officers and their families, returned at 5 am. They were brought to a complex in the southeastern Turkish city of Sanliurfa where they were found to be in good health.

On his official Twitter account, Davutoglu thanked the families of the former hostages “from the bottom of my heart” and praised the rescuers, “in particular [the] great effort of MIT Under-secretary Hakan Fidan” and the rest of the MIT Intelligence organization.

The hostages were abducted from the Turkish Consulate in Mosul in mid-June and were held in Iraq for 101 days before being freed Saturday morning. They were moved eight times, intelligence sources said, before they were transferred first to Syria in a special arrangement made with the Iraqis and then finally crossed the border into Turkey.

According to NTV news, there were no clashes and the operation was carried out via “native” intelligence operatives, not military. No ransom was paid, NTV reported, and no foreign intelligence operatives were involved.

Another Hamas suspect has been arrested in connection with the June 12 abduction and murder of three Israeli teens in Gush Etzion. Hebron resident Fares Qawasmeh, a 31-year-old doctor, is accused of being involved in planning the murder.

Qawasmeh was taken into custody by Palestinian Authority security forces, according to a report broadcast Tuesday on Israel’s Channel 10 television news.

The report was later confirmed in a post on the Twitter social networking site by Qatar-based senior Hamas official Hussam Badran. “The only crime Qawasmeh committed was to speak for Hamas at the victory celebrations for Gaza after the fighting against Israel,” Badran tweeted.

A number of local Arab residents aided the Qawasmeh family in carrying out the plot by hiding and sheltering the fugitives. Among them was Wael Qarameh, indicted by Israeli authorities in late August on charges of harboring a fugitive – Hebron resident Hussam Qawasmeh, who was indicted last week on multiple charges for masterminding the abduction and murder.

Qawasmeh, a Hebron resident was arrested on July 11 in a joint Shin Bet – IDF sting operation in the northern Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat. He had fled his home with the aid of friends and relatives in hopes of trying to make his way to Jordan on the strength of a false ID. Shuafat is the same Arab neighborhood where massive violence tore apart three Jerusalem Light Rail stations following the murder of a young Arab teen, the day after the bodies of the three Israeli teens were found.

Hussam Qawasmeh confessed under interrogation to having masterminded the plot to kidnap and murder the teens, and to having obtained financing for the operation from Hamas in Gaza. He admitted to having obtained false identity papers and fleeing as soon as the bodies of the three murder victims were unearthed from their hurriedly dug, shallow stony graves in the field he purchased in Halhul, along Highway 60 north of Hebron.

Marwan Qawasmeh – his kinsman – and Amar Abu Aisha, both also residents of Hebron, are suspected of being the ones to having joyfully carried out those plans. The actual gunshots that murdered the boys and the celebrations of their attackers after the murders in the getaway car were heard on a recording made on a police hotline via a call from one of the boys as he desperately sought rescue. The two murderers, meanwhile, remain at large.

Security sources revealed after last week’s indictment that Hussam Qawasmeh received a total of approximately NIS 200,000 ($61,500) from his brother in Gaza, Hamas terrorist Mahmoud Ali to pay for the operation. The costs included two vehicles – the abduction car and the getaway car – as well as four firearms and other expenses. Mahmoud was one of more than 1,000 Arab inmates freed in an October 2011 prisoner swap deal with Israel in exchange for the return of former IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped by Hamas and allied terrorists in 2006.

The IDF has confirmed 2nd Lt. Hadar Goldin, 23 of Kfar Saba is suspected to have been abducted by Hamas terrorists at approximately 9:30 am Friday morning. His family has been notified, IDF officials said. (His family has asked the public to please pray for the safe return of Hadar ben Hedva Leah.)

Two additional IDF soldiers were killed in the same attack; their families have been notified, the IDF Spokesperson said. Their names have not yet been released.

The group of terrorists who carried out the attack, which occurred in the southern Gaza border town of Rafah, included a suicide bomber.

Goldin was allegedly grabbed and dragged into a tunnel by terrorists who emerged from the shaft while the suicide bomber detonated himself nearby as a diversion, sources said.

“The incident is ongoing and the IDF is in the midst of operational and intelligence efforts to track down the soldier,” the IDF said in a statement.

The abduction effectively ended a cease fire that was barely underway. Some 40 Gazans were killed and more than 100 wounded by Israeli shelling in the hour that followed the attack, according to local reports.

Rocket and artillery attacks on the Eshkol Regional Council district had resumed by 10 am, indicating a total collapse of the cease fire.

Asked if the cease fire was over, IDF spokesperson Lt.-Col. Peter Lerner told media in a conference call, “Yes. We are continuing our activities on the ground.”

The Kerem Shalom border crossing was immediately closed. Roadblocks were set up at various intersections on route 232 near the Gaza border as well.

At the time of the attack, the soldiers were involved in neutralizing a terror tunnel. Two soldiers wounded in other clashes in the border town were airlifted by helicopter to Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva.

A spokesperson for Hamas claimed the attack took place prior to the start of the humanitarian cease fire window, at 7 am, during an exchange of heavy gunfire between IDF soldiers and Hamas terrorists in southern Gaza.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry spoke with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu shortly after, according to a spokesperson for the White House. The White House issued a statement early Friday afternoon saying that if it proved true that Hamas had abducted a soldier, it would be a “barbaric” violation of the cease fire. That changed quickly when the truth became obvious.

Netanyahu informed Kerry that Hamas will bear the consequences for its “gross violation” of the cease fire, and its apparent abduction of an IDF soldier.

In a rapid follow up briefing with media, White House spokesperson Josh Earnest called on Hamas to release the kidnapped Israeli soldier. The White House spokesperson said both Kerry and Netanyahu had already discussed the next steps to be taken.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists said Egypt told the group that a planned meeting in Cairo was postponed ‘until further notice’ following notification by Israel of the soldier’s abduction by Hamas.

The European Union, however, has called on Israel and Hamas to renew the cease fire. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton told media that member nations are “very troubled” by the resumption of hostilities. Ashton said it was “essential” for renewal of the truce, which must respect and end the killing of civilians.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this afternoon, spoke with US Secretary of State John Kerry and told him that despite his joint statement with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, according to which assurances had been received from Hamas and the other terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip regarding a ceasefire from 08:00 this morning, the Palestinians had unilaterally and grossly violated the humanitarian ceasefire and attacked our soldiers after 09:00.

As a result of this attack, two IDF soldiers were killed and another soldier is suspected to have been abducted; this was after the ceasefire had taken effect.

Prime Minister Netanyahu told US Secretary of State Kerry that Hamas and the other terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip will bear the consequences of their actions and that Israel would take all necessary steps against those who call for our destruction and perpetrate terrorism against our citizens.